They were waved through, manoeuvring past a phalanx of personnel carriers and SWAT vehicles. It had come to this, Kemp contemplated, to the level of flak-jackets and pump-action shotguns. Crisis talks, crisis management, crisis remedies. And no one thought straight in crises.
Krista was talking. ‘You’ve gone quiet on me. You thinking what I’m thinking – shit, what’s happening?’
‘I’m thinking – shit, the wrong guys are winning.’
‘Perhaps they’ll break.’
‘Not before they’ve done the damage, run us around. They’re deploying decoys, setting diversionary fires, laying down a lot of smoke.’ He was looking at her. ‘New groups are writing their tags every day. An hour before I left England, there was a racial kill in Manchester claimed by a group calling itself the Treblinka Crew.’
‘Nasty. Any significance?’
‘Only that fewer than seventy humans ever walked alive from the Nazis’ Treblinka camp, and 875,000 didn’t.’
‘What’s in a name, huh? The enemy’s got big ambitions.’
‘Getting bigger. Genocide’s definitely on the menu.’
She steered the vehicle through a chicane of road cones and accelerated. ‘We’re on firmer ground with the Forresters. They’re a real entity, real bad asses. Got apprehend on sight orders out with Bureau offices across America. Might be able to reel in several ex-servicemen.’
‘Whatever Professor Pitt has to offer, it had better be good.’
Shadows were lengthening from the west, the palm trees jutting ragged and dusty on the shanty skyline. The wetlands had gone, ripped up and built on by developers, economic boom and social bust colonizing land, choking off air, stealing the space. Hell on earth, the LA story. No more fantasy, no more habitat for pretence. Tinkabell was a crack whore, Mickey a sexual deviant; violence was everywhere. This time, reality was riding in, the tide was running out. Kemp closed his eyes. About now, Aubyn St Clair would be returning from a nightclub or drinking den to his Westminster home, the Colonel would be checking bootlegs at a secret warehouse somewhere in eastern Germany, and black or white killers would be cleaning weapons, following a car or casing an apartment. Whatever Professor Pitt has to offer, it had better be good.
CHAPTER 10
Voi che sapete. There was something about Mozart, the tenderness, humanity, the pathos and aching beauty. Duncan Pitt laid down his pen, sat back in the study chair, allowing the aria to flow over him. The voice soared, taking him with it. Opera could drain tension, release the soul. He felt better already, found himself quietly humming accompaniment, nodding his head in appreciation, in time. Music was peace and absolution, music was an escape to tranquillity. Bravo. Sheer make-believe. He studied the sheaf of printed pages before him. This was reality, an essay on evolving racial dynamics, an exposition of the carcinogenic effects of sectional ethnic interests on the American body politic. More controversy, more publicity. Undermining convention, expanding the envelope, was what he was expected to do, what he was about, what he was paid for. He could still surprise. There would be the usual censure, the customary outcry of victimhood lobbyists, black activists and righteous cultural-awareness profiteers, the sound of jerks and knee-jerks, of an entire industry tooling up for production of high-grade manure. He sighed. The early 1960s, he read. When blacks found a voice, when scores of African states gained independence and African-Americans sought equal status. Both dreams corrupted, both causes seized by the self-interested and the mad. Nothing was as it then seemed. Even Camelot had been staffed with crazed amoral amphetamine addicts. They compared favourably with today’s players, with the white supremacist he sought to foil, the black supremacist he sought to manipulate. Voi che sapete. If only they knew.
He retrieved the pen and made a small annotation in the margin. It was his territory, the security of academic papers, scholastic notoriety and bogeyman status. If he did not exist, they would have to invent him. Flattering in its way. Calm had returned, confidence regained, derived from ordering his thoughts, initiating the tentative approach to Josh Kemp in London and Reverend Al Azania here in Los Angeles. They took his calls, took him seriously, listened to his cryptic references to conspiracy and coming bloodshed. Their response was predictable. He had credibility, they had questions, and with a deepening racial crisis and the aftermath of Highway 80 smoking on news screens, attention was guaranteed. He was not spying or betraying, but merely informing. No harm done; further harm prevented. He, Professor Duncan Pitt, would stand no truck with thugs, the Forresters and murderers, the street fighting Aryan Sturmabteilung. To ignore it, to let people act barbarously, was tantamount to endorsement. Damn it, men such as Ted Bell were already quoting him, misinterpreting him, using him as an ideological touchstone. Time to put a stop. Meetings were suggested, accepted, calendar dates marked. Kemp planned to fly out to Los Angeles. Pitt would do what he could, come down on the side of law and democratic process. It was not so much a plea bargain as an exercise in covering his arse. The bigger the potential upset, the bigger the cushion required. He was custom-designing his seat, guarding his back.
‘How d’ya enjoy our opener in Alabama?’ The voice was familiar. Pitt spun his chair slowly, collecting himself, not wishing to cede the initiative. He glared wordlessly. Bell rested in the door frame, smiling. ‘Wolfgang Amadeus? Took you for a Wagner person.’
‘I took you for someone who would wait to be invited in.’
A shrug. ‘Guessed you were busy.’
‘You guessed correctly.’
‘Shucks, Dunc. Bad habit, I know. It’s my background in real-estate. I see a property, I can’t resist entering.’
‘Quite similar to trespass.’
‘Then, it’s lucky we’re friends. You wouldn’t tell on me, would you now?’
The chill heat prickled in Pitt’s bones, a reactive mix of fear and understanding that permeated, paralysed movement. Even in the face of discovery, confronted by the sly casualness in the face of Ted Bell, he would sustain the charade, assume a mask of cool superiority, adopt the manner of older and better qualified male. Role play. It came naturally, was part of the lecturer’s theatrical tradecraft. He could do wronged, uncomprehending, supercilious; he could deconstruct, reconstruct, debate, parry and thrust. Or he could shut up. Wise counsel. Argument and point-scoring would only provoke. But his body was running ahead of his brain, away from it, wanted to desert at the very moment he opted to stay. Uncomfortable situation, untenable. Lucky we’re friends. His luck was cursed, his friendship should never have migrated from the golf clubhouse. He could do with a drink.
‘Would you care for refreshment?’ he asked.
‘Mighty hospitable of you.’
Bell stood aside and let the Professor pass. Had to admire the guy’s sang-froid. Not every day an academic suffered a home-invasion, not every evening he discovered a major lapse of judgement had tripped him up. Pitt stopped. There was a man outside the French windows leading to the pool, another blocking the route to the main yard, a third in the entrance lobby. The blinds were drawn.
‘Meet my possum squad,’ Bell said from behind.
‘They’re unnecessary.’ They were unnerving. ‘Why are they here?’
‘Three-sixty-degree security. Can’t be too careful.’
‘I will not have them in my house.’
‘We can negotiate. Like that drink. Non-alcoholic, please. I’m on duty.’
Pitt stared ahead. ‘You have thirty seconds before I call the police.’
‘Using what?’ The cellphone appeared over the professor’s shoulder, was waggled before him. ‘The landlines appear to be inoperable. Have you any juice? Cranberry will be fine.’
They would not hurt him, could not touch him, Pitt reasoned, reassuring himself. It was simply posturing, muscle-flexing. Every paramilitary wannabe acquired bodyguards, became seduced by the visible trappings of beer-cellar culture and fascist machismo. It was a status thing, an insecurity thing. Yet it was he who felt insecure. These people had blown apart the Peace Walk in Alabama, penetrated law-enforcement agencies, were plotting and preparing on a Homeric scale. Their odyssey, their fantasy wish-fulfilment. The Forresters were more than a mere name, they went beyond the talk, the walk, of a fanciful shadow organization with historical delusions. They were on his property, on his case, in force. He noticed the Mozart had finished.
The drinks were poured, Pitt providing himself with a tumblerful of Jack. No ice. It was not the occasion for frills. He was ushered through to the swimming-pool area, the outside lights off, the cicadas loud and close in the darkness.
‘Nice place you got,’ Bell observed. Small-talk without any effort at small-talk, stoking intimidation, claustrophobia. Pitt sipped the whisky, let it burn its way to a cold interior. ‘You’re looking tense, Professor Pitt.’
‘Trick of the light.’ A further mouthful of liquor, an attempt at measured swallowing.
‘I’m glad. Stress is so bad for the health. You’ve created a calm little oasis for yourself. Quiet, out of the way. Anyone would be comfortable here, proud to own it.’
‘What do you want?’
‘Peace of mind, space. A dog would be nice. Kid you not, Professor, I like the ’burbs. You can keep your head down, mind your own business. Is that what you do – mind your own business?’
